Cold Iron

A Session Summary for our Fifth Session

Wrap up Ringing Mountain Stuff (we all have evening activities)
Flint: dwarves proposition her on behalf of the awkward fellow; she helps him out
Grav: wrestles, as per the usual. goes 3 rounds, loses 2-1. goes for a rematch 3 rounds, wins one, loses one, last one is crazily dramatic, and finally he loses, but earns the respect of the dwarves. also, now he owes a favour (something with a favour stone)
Nyix: tries to hang out with the eladrin, but that is an epic fail. ends up in library instead. learns abt depth madness, dueregar (deep weird dwarves), etc. glugo comes by; they chat about the rebirth of magic.

On the way home, Whisperhiss accompanies us part of the way. We have some conversation with her. Relevant tidbits include: the faerie war started because of a need for a safe space to exist, because of the horrors. In the end, she leaves us, not because of any hard feelings, but because, “I have to go home.”

Also, Grav punches a bird. Quite spectacularly. It makes him happy.

Later, we return to Warden Springs, and there is Dreyda’s boss Tallis: human, grizzled, dresses in black, lots of scars, eyepatch, smokes a pipe.

The conversation gets pretty intense, and not everyone is such a fan of Tallis—nor is Tallis such a fan of everyone. The passive aggression, suspicion, veiled threats, etc are flying.

We have to end before the conversation is quite done—we will pick up the end of it next session. I am not sure exactly where in the conversation things get cut off.

A Session Summary for our Snowstorm Special Edition Flashback Session

A Session Summary for our Fourth Session

Played 1/27 in Emily’s room at Concord and ordered milkshakes.

Have agreed with the Summer Court that we will go back to Ringing Mountain together, and bring back the bodies of the fallen dwarves.

Flint looks at silver UFO with Whistlehiss—turns out it is basically made of mirror. She talks to Whistlehiss about the other courts, some one-word impressions surface for each. For the Spring Court, silly & flaky; for the Autumn Court, sneaky; for the Winter Court, evil and toadstools and bitey creatures.

Meanwhile Grav gets into some wrestling with the archers.

We head back towards Ringing Mountain, having dug up the dwarves who are wrapped in linen. We carry them on some magical floating discs. It is a whole wizard thing.

We sleep at the same place we slept on the way down. Nyix learns a really weird card game.

In the morning, endless diplomacy checks, moving speeches, and other amazing and touching things. Long story short, the faeries and the dwarves amazingly agree to get along.

Later, in the temple, Perkupsia goes mad. It is really kind of awful. He ends up thrown into the giant crevice. Grav jumps in after him, but Flint teleports him out. It is all very intense and emotional.

epilogue i

Later that night, a tail for Scout. She walks through a pool and comes out not only with a tail, but feeling stronger and more alive, more herself.

David sent us these emails as further epilogues:

epilogue ii

Leopold came to the faeries in the night. He came with the priest, so as to show that he meant no more harm. Or, to show that he meant harm no more.

People do crazy things, when things change all of a sudden. He thought he could handle it, but the terror of that day, so deep underground, came back to him so clearly, so suddenly, there in the temple. And what could he do but rush the chief of them, with whatever weapon he had? But, afterwards, after he was healed from his wound, and after he spoke with the priest. Leopold realized, Leopold remembered, Leopold knew that he had turned to violence without warning, that he had turned to violence without reason, and that through that violence another had come to death. Another death after too many deaths of fallen brethren. And the faeries missed their fallen ones as surely and as sadly as he missed his fallen ones. He knew that his blow was not solely responsible for the madness and death that followed it, there in that sacred temple- but there was some guilt on his head, and his honor, his ancestors, his god, his very heart- these demanded a payment of the debt.

The other thing to know is that the pixies were there in the temple, through the violence, constrained as they were in a great sack. When Percupsia fell, it was all that the archers could do to restrain the bag from following after. As a man holds a loving pet back from a house on fire, or an oncoming car. But hold them back they did. Pixies are loyal to one, it’s true, but they are also loyal to a clan. To a command. To a family, such as it is. So the pixies stayed in that temple, when their master fell. The pixies, and his sword as well, dropped on the stone in the blast that dropped him. And the faeries claimed them both, and brought them to that night’s dwelling, as they had so many before.

But Leopold came to the faeries that night, after he came to his senses. He came with the priest but he went in alone, and he stayed in their quarters for a long time, in that silent night, in the darkness and the cold. And some say much talking was heard in those quarters, and some say none.

Leopold left Ringing Mountain in the early hours, before even the dwarves woke to continue their mourning. He left Ringing Mountain, with the priest’s blessing. He left to pay his blood-debt, to continue the mission of the fallen, the mission inscribed on the very temple stones. He left, to defend the surface. He left to wander the tunnels- the faerie tunnels and the dwarf tunnels, and the tunnels deeper than any of those. And as he wandered he carried Percupsia’s sword. And as he wandered, he was followed and led and protected and accompanied by a swarm of pixies, dedicated also to their fallen comrade’s mission, now Leopold’s. Now their own. They would defend the surface, from deep within the earth.

A few of the watch saw him, leaving the city, with the sword and the swarm. They saw and knew, or knew after a few words from the priests. And some of them even spoke of it, later, late in the night, in the cold and the darkness, after the last sips of a mug, after the night-fires had died down to embers. Some of them even spoke of it, and after they did, they were often silent. Silent for a long while.

But Leopold left. With a swarm and a sword. To wander the darkness, and to defend the surface.

epilogue iii

There’s not one thing they say about the world to come. That world that waits beyond our deaths. But those who walk in the paths of Pelor say that the Sun God is merciful, and welcomes all who love them, regardless of their imperfections and their failings.

It’s hard to know, maybe, if you do not worship the sun, what it means to see the dawn. And harder yet, maybe impossible, to know what seventy-odd years of darkness means for those who worship the sun. To never see the dawn, to see sunlight only in glimpses and memories.

It’s hard to know what that would mean, how that would feel. And, truth be known, it was staggering and colossal and world-shaking to those three faeries who made it to the surface, after. Who made it to see once again the dawn of the sun, in this world if not their own. To see the light of their Beloved, returned to them after so many years in the darkness. It was all of those things.

But greater still, perhaps, or so the stories claim- greater still, perhaps, was the vision of the Great Dawn, the Light that Will Last, come once and for all to Pelor’s child, finished finally with his long toil. A greater dawn, still, perhaps.

A Sesson Summary for our Third Session

We left our heroes headed to bed in the Dwarven settlement of Ringing Mountain

Nyix woke up early, did some light (ha!) reading and research about the ice caves (drow and crawling ones and horrors oh my!).

During our morningtime departure, a noticeably long embrace between Dreda and Glugo. Grav doesn’t notice.

What follows is an endless walk through curving tunnels, made even endlesser by incessant blathering about historical trivia courtesy of Nyix. Thanks, Wiz.

After 2 hours, we pass between a pair of stelae with an inscription kind of like:
“Here ends the territory of the Ringing Mountain. Let all those who pass within its borders fear Morridan, for its inhabitants protect the surface with their lives and with their steel.”

Shortly thereafter, a three-way split in the path—the middle way is new, and not hewn, but something that looks more like a natural crevice. Or fissure. Or maybe some sort of a cleft, an interstice, cranny, nook, slit, split, rift, fracture, breach…whatever, we head (ha!) into the opening.

We rest for the night in the tunnel, and some of us are visited by dreams. Flint awakens remembering a sense of cold and loneliness. Scout awakens with those sensations as well as feelings of searching and waiting and an unidentified sense of mission coupled with wrath.

In the morning, we consider building a fire (“But do we have anything to make a fire with?” “Um..the wizard??”) We thank Nyix for the breakfast (it’s magically delicious!) and are off.

We have not been walking for long when a mote of sunlight catches our eye a long way off. It is somehow shining through a hole in the ceiling. Dreda tells us the dwarves have set up mirrors to shine light in here—as in on cue, the light fades. Weird. We build an Inukshuk to mark the spot for future study and move on cautiously.

After a while, the fissure starts to look less natural and more worked—it is not modern dwarven work but maybe something more ancient. Drow? Gnomes? Is magic afoot? A GIANTBUG??? No one knows; on we march.

Nyix gets the idea that it is kind of like a magical musical instrument or something. Grav throws a rock, which provokes a thrum or pulse or something that we all feel but can’t identify. Further interactions with the thing provoke no further thrummy pulses. Flint regrets that we messed with some high-level intelligent being in these caves; quoth Grav, “It can’t be that smart if it was outsmarted by a rock!” It is difficult to argue with this kind of logic.

Elsewhere in the party, Nyix shouts “hello” in a panoply of languages, though his efforts to communicate in primordial are somewhat thwarted (“Okay, you cannot make an alpine horn out of prestidigitation”). His shouts are returned in Fey: “Who passes there?”

A long and delicate conversation follows. We drop our weapons, and proceed forward, only to fall into (Flint) and jump through (Nyix, Grav, Scout and eventually Dreda) a trap door.

We meet the shiny eladrin Perkupsia (Poughkeepsie for short), his second Whistlehiss, and two archers Cobbley and Woodrow, accompanied by their cloud’o’pixies. We later learn that the group of dudes we have stumbled upon is an outpost of something called the Citadel of the Summer Court.

More conversation ensues. It is nothing if not dicey, and not helped by the fact that our one Fey-speaking guy also has a pretty low diplomacy score, so to speak. It turns out that he really knows how to roll a 20 when it counts, though, if you know what I mean. Anyway, despite the dicey-ness we learn that our new acquaintances have been trapped in the stone since the Faerie War and believe it to be still going on, that they have lost 8 of their original party of 12 in those 75 years, that they killed the dwarves who came before us (thinking them to be enemies), and that they are generally stand-up guys and very honorable soldiers who have experienced some serious tragedy in their unfailing efforts to do their duty. They also seem really remorseful about the killing. We thank our lucky stars it didn’t come to a fight, which would have just compounded the tragedy. (Parenthetically, we also learn that they are hot and their building is very shiny, as well as that Whistlehiss is some sort of perfectly tuned hybrid of prophetess, creepy, and batshit insane. She smells us all and mumbles a lot.)

Ultimately, we convince the CotSC dudes to give us a chance, to trust us and tell us their story, and we all agree that we will travel together to the Ringing Mountain settlement where they will have a chance to apologize for the mistaken killings and maybe end up back in Faerie or maybe live happily ever after. But they are going to carry our weapons for us. This is all a lot for them to take.

There are many lingering questions (Including, okay, do they worship Pelor or something? If not, what is with that Pelor symbol on the wall? And who made their doorbell and how long ago?), but there will be ample time to discuss that on the journey—for now, we share with them our food (they have been enduring 75 years of lichens and moss, michens and loss) and drink and ready ourselves for the journey back and all the diplomatic whatnot that awaits us when we return to Ringing Mountain.

(Sadly, we did not give ouches to any tigers, silly or no—maybe next time.)

A Session Summary for our Second Session

Morning meeting at pub/temple, we decide to tell Dreda our magic secret
Meeting with Dreda
Head out to the Ice Caverns, on the road Scout has a tail-related conversation with Dreda
On the way, battle dire wolf, goblin, hobgoblin
Nyix nearly kills us all; Flint freaks out a little
Grav would really really like to adopt Bitey (the dire wolf) but it just doesn’t work out :(
Afterwards, Nyix exhausts his Daily power while we all stand far far away
Later, Scout also exhausts her Daily, just in case

We arrive at Ringing Mountain, eventually
We are welcomed, but mostly just hear the story of the lost party and head off to drinking and then bed
Scout gets a consult about her tail and possible restoration (possible, but expensive, on the order of reward for what we are about to do)

In Which Scout Experiments With Magic A Little, and Ponders Magic A Lot

I seriously have no idea how I am going to even sleep tonight. But I have to. I forgot to say it before, but Dreda spoke to us this afternoon, after we had taken care of the goblins and whatnot, and she asked us to go with her to the Ice Caverns to see a friend of hers about a serious (and maybe magical) problem they are having. We are leaving in the morning. I am the slowest and the smallest and none too strong, so if I haven’t slept, there is no way I can keep up with everyone else in an all-day march.

But I just have to write at least two more things: One is the thing I didn’t say before, about today, and the second is what happened during the magic experiments. Those I think should be written down because then we can think them over later and try to figure out what happened and why.

So, in reverse order:

The experiments were probably the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me. I am kind of jealous of Nyix that he is turning into a wizard, but mostly just amazed that it is real.

We decided to do only things that wouldn’t destroy anything, things like the chipmunks were which might get weird but shouldn’t be dangerous. I don’t remember the names of all the things he did, but I will leave spaces so I can ask him in the morning.

First he tried to make something disappear (spell name: prestidigitation). It was my hat. It got shredded to pieces (but don’t worry, it gets better later).

He said he should be able to move things (spell name: mage hand), so he tried to move an apple—not as big of a deal if it got ruined, but it didn’t get ruined at all. It just moved nicely across the room, all smoothly and amazing.

After that he told me about something where he could make a little light on the end of his staff (spell name: ). I guess we should have realized by then, but we didn’t think about it, and it made a GIANT flash of light. I was afraid everyone would see it, but nothing happened for a while. Then Dreda came wondering what was going on, which was kind of scary, so even though we convinced her it was nothing, we went on to something else for the moment.

After that, he thought he would make me a new hat (that is also a kind of prestidigitation), so he did a spell to make a hat. But he said it would disappear after a little while. When he did the spell, it made a whole room full of hats, which would have been difficult to explain, but at least they disappeared after a little bit like he said, so that was fine.

After that, I had the idea that maybe things got better with practice or something, and he tried some of the things a few more times. I think now he can make a light at the end of his staff dependably, and move things fine. There is also something called ghost sound, but that had to wait for tomorrow, because of maybe waking people up.

I know I should write more, but my hand is tired, and even though it was exciting, I didn’t understand it as well as Nyix. Hopefully he is writing things down, too.

Anyway, here is the other thing: There is something different about me, and it makes me think maybe I have magical powers, too. I am scared because of what Flint said (and what my dad said) and I am confused because I know I am not a wizard. But strangely, I am mostly just excited and somehow I know that it will be worth whatever is scary or confusing to follow this wherever it leads. I am not normally this brave, and I am really not normally this sure of anything, but I think maybe that is the magic, too, and I am giving it a chance.

See, here is the thing: even though no one talked about it much because of all Nyix’s wizarding, things were pretty strange for me in that battle, too.

For one thing, my skin has gotten harder and thicker and looks weird. It is like I am an armadillo. And I think it protected me from Nyix’s fireball a little (maybe that is why I got less mad than Flint). Maybe some of the magic from the fireball got on me and made my skin strange? I don’t know very much about magic and I am kind of afraid to ask Nyix for now.

But the other thing is the part that changed everything. It was when I was fighting the goblins. I think anyone can tell by looking at me that I am not much with a sword, and usually that is totally true, but when I hit those goblins, well…it wasn’t so much when I hit them, though, as right before. And I know if I tell anyone, they will just say I was excited about Nyix’s magic and imagined things, just like my father used to when I was little, and maybe I did, but I don’t think so. I just felt inside me this surge of courage and anger at the goblins and concern about the Gruenwalds, who looked so scared and the goblins didn’t even care. And it was like I forgot about being afraid of the goblins’ meanness and instead I knew I had to do something about it and, like, I wanted to. It was even like I had to. But not in a bad way, just like my whole body wanted it not just because of ideas but because it was where I belonged, trying to make it right. I can’t explain it but I feel like I will never forget the feeling, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

But here is the other thing, and this is part of why I think it wasn’t just my imagination convincing me. I hurt those goblins more with my sword than I ever ever should have, or at least more than I have ever hurt anyone. My arm felt stronger, every move seemed perfect and perfectly aimed and controlled, and the sword even (this sounds stupid, but no one will read it but me, so it is okay) I think it even glowed a little bit. And the goblin looked stunned, and like he was reconsidering who he was messing with, you know? Like maybe he wasn’t sure if he should try to hurt us after all.

I don’t know what to make of it. On the one hand, I don’t like the idea of being really violent and hurting people and if I become magically good at swordfighting, that is what the Blue Daggers will have me doing, more and more. And hating a goblin just because it is a goblin is just the kind of thing my father would do. But is there a kind of magic that makes someone who is hurting someone else want to stop hurting them? That makes them think about what they are doing for a minute, instead of just thinking about themselves?

I don’t know anything about magic like that, except that it definitely is not the regular kind—all the time growing up I just heard of evil magic and being mean to people, and then of course there were the stories Elpen told about wizards and the Faerie Wars and spells and magic tricks his grandparents used to play.

And I do a little bit still wish I could be a wizard like Nyix, who knows things about his powers and how they work, and who everyone thinks is interesting and amazing.

But now that I think about it, if I could have magic that makes people who are hurting other people think twice about it, that would maybe be the best kind anyway, because it would be for helping people, which is more important than tricks, and it would make the people who need protecting a little bit safer. Anyway, I like who I am with this magic, and that’s really all I can know for now. I’ll just have to pay attention and see what happens next.

I have to go to sleep now because my hand is SO tired and we have to wake up in the morning and decide whether to tell Dreda about the magic and then we are going to the Ice Caves and who knows what we will learn there. I think this book is small enough, and I am going to bring it, so I’ll keep writing and hopefully my hand will also get stronger.

In Which Scout Knows Everything is Going To Be Different From Now On

Okay, I have decided I should start a journal or something, but I don’t really know how you are supposed to

Today was probably the strangest and most exciting day of my life, and it feels like everything is going to be different for me from now on, so I want to start writing it down, even though I don’t really even know where to start.

Ever since I’ve been with the Blue Daggers, I’ve been mostly working with Grav, Flint, and Nyix. Today we got sent out to check out something with the Kreeflargh Goblins —nothing out of the ordinary, apparently. They come through the Hollow Valley about this time every year, according to Dreda, and usually are up to some trouble. I guess the Blue Daggers are used to having some kind of mess to clean up.

Anyway, it was a pretty regular day. We went to see what was going on with an alleged kidnapping—a farmer and his wife from the valley, the Gruenwalds—and ended up in a fight with a handful of goblins. We rescued the prisoners in the end and it was all pretty anticlimactic, but that isn’t what makes today worth starting a journal over. No, it was a strange day for us all for different reasons.

It was the strangest for Nyix, I think, and here’s why: all that magic he’s always going on about, which doesn’t of course work ever since the Faerie Wars (and maybe never really did if you ask some people), worked. Sort of. He did a spell he read that threw a ball of, I guess, fire at someone. Only it threw balls of fire at all of us, instead. Sure, he doesn’t really know what he is doing, but what if he learned? He could be the first magic person, what do you call them, the first wizard, since the Faerie Wars ended all the magic that they say used to exist everywhere you looked.

Anyway, he threw this ball of fire, we were all shocked, but we kept fighting and things kept going our way. Nyix did his spell again but this time aimed at just the guy he was trying to aim at, and even though Grav got caught in a ball of some kind of stinging goo and was out of it for a while, he bashed some folks in as usual. But all of that kind of didn’t matter as much anymore because we were all thinking about Nyix and his magic (well, I think everyone else was, but I certainly was).

Afterwards we talked about it and here is the other thing: no one reacted in the way I thought. Grav tried to pretend nothing important had even happened and he didn’t believe there was anything magical or out of the ordinary about it. I couldn’t believe it. I was so full of…something…I can’t even explain it. It was more than excitement. It was like I was twice as alive as I had been before. But Grav seemed like he thought it was no big deal at all. We tried to convince him it was a big deal, but he brushed it off. But Flint was the weirdest. She was a little crazy about it. To her it was a big deal, but not in an exciting way. She just kept warning us and acting like it was really scary. I mean, obviously it is scary to get a ball of fire thrown at you, but it is also exciting to know someone who is magic. It changes everything!

On the way home, another strange thing happened. We decided to test the magic, so Nyix did another spell he knew. He found a chipmunk, and told it to go over to Grav and say, “Do you believe now, Grav?” to him, just to show Grav that magic was real. It was like the first time, though, and didn’t go quite as planned. Practically all the chipmunks in the forest came up to Grav and whispered it to him—it was really creepy. I thought it was a little scary that Nyix didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but it was close enough, and it sure showed everyone that something magical was going on. I think the answer to the chipmunk’s question now is, “Yes.” So that’s Grav.

But Flint just got even more panicky. She kept saying strange things and I couldn’t tell whether to be annoyed with her for not seeing how amazing this is and for acting like she thinks she is someone’s mom, or to be really worried about her and also worried for us. She sounded really serious, and like she knew something she wasn’t telling us. No one seemed that worried about it but me, I guess, so on the way back to town I talked to her for a little while. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, but she did say there was something that had happened to her that she couldn’t say, but made her know that it was important to be careful with supernatural powers. She seemed as much scared of herself as of anything else, and she seemed angry with us for not being more scared. She said people should know enough about their power to be sure it is safe, so they don’t risk hurting other people, or something like that. I wished she would tell me what happened to her, but it seemed really clear that I shouldn’t push it. I know she is right that you can really use your power in bad ways, and maybe not on purpose. I just wish she didn’t have to be scared of her own self. I didn’t tell her anything about what I know about power or about being scared, but I did tell her I thought she was wise to be concerned, but also that she should take her own advice about learning enough about power so that you don’t have to be scared.

I am still pretty excited and I am still pretty scared, too. But mostly I am pretty excited. I’m going to try to be careful like Flint said—I know she must have had a reason or she wouldn’t have looked or sounded like that—but I just know there has to be a way to be careful but also really excited. Just because something might be bad doesn’t mean it has to be.

There is one more thing, kind of the biggest one, but I have to go meet Nyix. I told him I would meet him tonight to try out some of his magic. I really want to help him make it work so he can really use it and then I will know an actual wizard! I don’t quite know how to say this, but I guess it is like if there are wizards anything is possible and anything people think they know, even the worst things, might be wrong.

A Session Summary for our First Session

We meet our heroes fighting a band of goblins (from the Kreeflargh tribe) who have kidnapped some unsuspecting citizens. Jerks.

Combat ensues, and is basically your standard combat session except for the DAMNOUT OF CONTROLWIZARD who shoots magic missile at everyone in sight. Wtf, wizard? Anyway, despite that, and some strange new skin on Scout, the battle sort of transpires in the usual way: Grav is Punch Punchy, Flint is all feely and heal-ey and emotey, Scout swords stuff with her sword and Nyix is…well, Nyix is useful for once.

So, we save the nice farmers, kill the goblins (except for two that we kidnap), chat about magic (we learn there is someone on the Baron’s land who is…strange—maybe a changeling or maybe magical?), pocket some stinging goo from one of the goblins, and head back into town.

On the way home, Grav still doesn’t believe, and through a series of madcap capers and whatnot, a chorus of chipmunks ends up ambushing him and asking, in chorus, “Do you believe, now, Grav?” It is pretty creepy. Presumably, Grav believes.

Flint never had a problem believing, she just had a problem being okay with it. She is pretty convinced we are all crazy and reckless and shit like this is more trouble than good, just ask her mysterious past. Wait, we cannot because she will not reveal it to us.

When we get back to town and The Coop (spelled with the same letters as co-op but with different punctuation, and also it is an abandoned chicken coop), we have a chat with Dreda and she says we can interrogate our own goblins. She seems preoccupied. We interrogate the goblins, don’t learn too much that is interesting (except that we get to hang with Slow, um, Lenny or something? he is funny but i forget his name).

Off go the goblins and we meet with Dreda. She invites us to accompany her to the Ice Caves where we can help out a friend of hers with some mysterious circumstances that have beset some dwarves up there. We are into it. We’ll leave in the morning.

Scout and Nyix do some magic testing, with mostly comical and slightly disruptive results. It works out okay, though, and they learn some stuff. Looks like we have a wizard, after all.

A blog for your campaign

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.